The never ending blame game that is politics has turned now to DVD ratings. Lady Thatcher, David Cameron and the current government have all come in for criticism over the fact that legislation was not passed on properly to our masters on the continent.For most anti-censorship types the ratings system is better off on the ctting room floor and for good reasons too. Ignoring the efficacy of banning stuff in the age of the interent, its arbitrary nature has been shown to be questionable. Caligula was banned while torture porn like Hostel (I,II) and the Saw series have been approved.
If there is a banned film you have always wanted, now might be the time to go seek it out. Be careful though, the government is claiming that it will carry on fining people regardless of the fact that no longer have the legal footin to do so. Graham Barnfield has an excellent and comprehensive article on this over at Spiked. His conclusion is to be aplauded:
The idiocies of the BBFC would be less frustrating were they not also the springboard for prosecutions. Why should the subjective decisions of a quango form the basis for fines and incarceration? The bottom line is that criminal law needs to butt out of the cinema and home entertainment industries. If consenting participants in film productions emerge unharmed from the production process, then the resulting films would meet a revised, forward-looking minimum legal threshold in future. (Whether they should go ahead on aesthetic or commercial grounds is a separate issue.) This latest humiliation for the Video Recordings Act 1984 should be a chance to wipe the tape clean and treat adult viewers as adults.
